Origins of surname
This family is more likely to be descended from a servant in a knight's household, rather than a Knight, who would have had a more distinctive family name. The word comes from the old English criht, meaning boy, youth or serving lad, later extended to mean a tenant bound to serve his lord as a mounted soldier an,d therefore a man of some importance and substance.
With the changes in the social structure of medieval England, the term 'knight', from the Middle English knyghte meant an honour bestowed by the king on men, usually of noble birth but not holding a title in their own right, who had served him well.
Early records
Although Jersey had many men knighted by their sovereign over the centuries, they used the French title chevalier, and the English name only appeared in island records in 1727, followed by a gap of some 80 years before the first family became established. That was George Knight and Esther, and their six children, baptised in St Lawrence or St Helier.
Variants
- Knight
- Knyght, archaic form
Family records
Family trees
Church records
- Knight baptisms in Jersey
- Knight marriages in Jersey (groom)
- Knight marriages in Jersey (bride)
- Knight burials in Jersey
Great War service
- Raymond Knight (1891-1917) son of Jersey-born Melvina Amenda Knight (née Robilliard), gunner, Australian Field Artillery, killed in action
- Stanley Knight, son of Jersey-born Melvina Amenda Knight (née Robilliard), Bombadier, Australian Field Artillery
- Thomas Benjamin Knight (1866- ) (St H), son of Elizabeth Ann Knight, Chief Officer RN, HMS President IV
Family wills
These wills created by members of the Knight family are now held by Jersey Archive. By visiting the archive site and using the names, dates and reference numbers shown here, it is possible to view a copy of each will. You will have to subscribe to the Archive's online service to do this. To find out more about this collection, which covers the period from 1663 to 1980, and how to search for your family's wills there, visit our Jersey wills page
- Agnes Knight of 30 Durell Place, St Saviour's Road, St Helier, widow of Alfred Denziloe, bequeaths to Mary Herrissier a Quebec bond - 16 February 1899, D/Y/A/58
- John Knight of Cornwall, England, now of St Helier - 28 December 1876, D/Y/A/39
- John Knight of St Helier, Grocer 17 December 1861 - D/Y/A/30
- Margaret Knight widow of Joseph Godfrey Sherer Dated 30th June - 17 August 1866, D/Y/A/33
- Charlotte Knight, 1 Saville Street, St Helier - 31 May 1930, D/Y/A/90
- Joseph Knight, 4 Ralegh Avenue, St Helier - 26 October 1938, D/Y/A/103
- Laura Knight, 72 Colomberie, St Helier - 13 September 1924, D/Y/A/84
- William Knight, Caprice Villa, 12 Old St James Place, St Helier - 4 February 1944, D/Y/A/112
- William Knight, Elsbill, Maufant, St Saviour - 22 May 1946, D/Y/A/116
Burial records
Family album
Family businesses
- Jane Knight was a linen draper at 43 King Street in the 1890s
- James Martin Knight's Hong Kong Tea Stores were at 55 King Street in the 1870s
P Knight, boot and shoe shop, at 9 Royal Square in 1840
Family gravestones
Click on any image to see a larger version. See the Jerripedia gravestone image collection page for more information about our gravestone photographs
Knight - Mont a l’Abbe cemetery
St Lawrence
Tips
The church record links above will open in a new tab in your browser and generate the most up-to-date list of each set of records from our database. These lists replace earlier Family page baptism lists, which were not regularly updated. They have the added advantage that they produce a chronological listing for the family name in all parishes, so you do not have to search through A-Z indexes, parish by parish.
We have included some important spelling variants on some family pages, but it may be worth searching for records for a different spelling variant. Think of searching for variants with or without a prefix, such as Le or De. To search for further variants, or for any other family name, just click on the appropriate link below for the first letter of the family name, and a new tab will open, giving you the option to choose baptism, marriage or burial records. You will then see a list of available names for that type of record and you can select any name from that list. That will display all records of the chosen type for that family name, and you can narrow the search by adding a given name, selecting a parish or setting start and end dates in the form you will see above. You can also change the family name, or search for a partial name if you are not certain of the spelling
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New records
Since August 2020 we have added several thousand new records from the registers of Roman Catholic, Methodist and other non-conformist churches. These will appear in date order within a general search of the records and are also individually searchable within the database search form
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